Page 36 of Knox (The Devil’s Luck MC #6)

KNOX

I had never been more terrified in my entire life than when Caroline approached Vane fearlessly. It was like watching her walk straight to her death sentence.

There was nothing I could do. If I tried to intervene, it would only get us both hurt.

So I knelt on the floor, too dazed to get up, waiting for the first woman I truly cared about to sacrifice herself willingly.

Selfish Caroline no more.

I knew she was doing this for more than herself, more for me—but for us , and for the Devils. For the future of Reno itself.

I hated the exchange. The attacks she barely missed. The terror that she would miss her mark. The fear that she would hit, but it wouldn’t make a difference.

Bang!

Blood exploded from Vane’s head.

It jerked back like someone had yanked a string through his skull. His dark eyes lost their rage, going wide in shock—just until the light went out.

Then he crumpled into a lifeless husk, dropping to the concrete with a meaty thud that seemed louder than the gunshot itself. Vane twitched once. Then stillness.

A horrifying amount of blood pooled from his head, spreading toward Caroline’s boots. She didn’t move as it stained the bottoms.

Vane was dead.

No drama. No last words. Just fucking dead.

I looked at Caroline. She was frozen, wide-eyed and breathing hard, still holding the gun up as it smoked.

She had killed the bastard. It was justice. Vane tried to hurt her, and she didn’t take that shit lightly. She got her revenge—and saved the Devils.

My brothers and I were just as frozen, gaping at Vane as if we hadn’t seen dozens of dead men before. They were all conscious now, battered, bruised, and bleeding, but alive.

And then they looked at Caroline.

Her arms went limp at her sides, and she let the gun clatter to the floor.

That was its own kind of trigger.

I lurched forward, pulling Caroline into a lung-crushing hug, kissing her wherever I could. She didn’t reciprocate at first, but then sobbed and flung her arms around my torso.

“He’s gone, baby,” I whispered into her blood-flecked hair. “He’s gone. Dead. You’re safe. You saved us. I’m so proud of you.”

While Caroline wept into my shirt, I looked up to see the Devils regrouping a distance away. Half of them limped, the other half gingerly touched fucked-up body parts. Brody was already tending to Mason’s stab wound with a big strip of his own shirt as a tourniquet.

Guilt started to cripple me.

Jackson? No way would he let that shit slow him down. He was already in leader mode.

“The Wolverines will be here any minute. Pray to whatever god you want that the spikes took enough of them out, then pray to another that it evened the numbers like we predicted. Bates,” he barked.

Caroline stiffened but didn’t acknowledge Jackson. A spark of pride zipped through my veins.

Jackson sighed heavily. “Caroline.”

I released Caroline from my embrace so she could face her greatest enemy. Her eyes were teary and puffy, but they burned with resilience, her chin tipped up. She wasn’t going to be intimidated by any man now.

“Where—” Jackson began.

“I’m glad you’re all alive,” Caroline interrupted. “Let this be proof I’m no longer affiliated with Walter Bates. Before you ask,” she continued with a bite. “There are first-aid supplies in one of the closets. I’ll lead you to them.”

Jackson, not pleased at being talked over, nodded curtly. “Lead the way, then.”

“Quickly,” Brody urged. “Mason. He?—”

Caroline broke into a jog without another word. I rushed to help guide Abel, who was the third worst off. Jackson guided both Mason and Brody, who was the second worst off.

We limped to the nearest supply closet. We raided it for anything and everything to patch us up. Brody, of course, was the go-to. But Jackson?

He was applying his SEAL training in earnest. It was the first time I’d seen him tending to severe wounds with the efficiency of a, well, a military-trained soldier.

My ass didn’t know shit beyond pouring hydrogen peroxide on a wound.

Ironically, Brody caught me reaching for it.

“No, you fucking idiot!” he barked, making himself wince in pain. “I told your girl, that’s not what you fucking put on shit!”

“Well, what do you use?” I snapped back.

“Don’t worry about it. Help me.”

I did whatever Brody ordered me to do. The five of us worked in tandem to fix up what we could.

After we finished the task, Caroline gripped my sleeve and pulled me out of earshot of the guys.

I put my hands on her hips, beyond relieved she was unhurt. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Caroline shook her head. She struggled for words, but when she got them out, she was determined as all hell. “We know my father’s coming. He’ll be here any second, whether he hit the spikes or not. I know what I need to do.”

I bared my teeth. “No. We already have a plan. We’re not deviating?—”

“And look how well the first plan worked out.” She jerked her chin at Vane’s body.

I took her chin gently and turned it up toward me, then kissed her. She immediately melted, and I wished we were the only two people on the planet. “You convinced me,” I murmured against her lips.

Caroline smirked, but it was brief. At that moment, Jackson found us.

“What do you propose?”

Caroline’s hand in mine squeezed, the only show of surprise that Jackson acknowledged her without malice.

She didn’t hesitate to go into report mode.

“My father and the Wolverines are coming, and when they get here, they’re going to be pissed.

As soon as Walter sees this, or hears of it, he won’t come inside.

We need him inside. If he isn’t closed in, he’s going to escape.

History is proof enough that he can get out of any sticky situation. ”

“Okay, and?” Jackson said.

“And I’ll lure him inside. Then I’ll step aside when one of you has a clear shot, and we finish him off. Easy.”

Jackson and I weren’t convinced.

She continued. “We’ve already established that today is Walter’s death day. If left alive, he’ll continue to spiral and become an even bigger danger to the people in Reno. He’ll find more Vanes and there’ll be no stopping him.”

Caroline paused, staring into Jackson’s soul. “You deserve to do it, Black Jack—a life for a life.”

The guys limped out of the closet to look at Caroline.

“You don’t want to do it?” Abel asked her. “You’ve got more reason to kill him. I get he’s still your dad, but?—”

“Not anymore.”

I squeezed her hand for support. We could all tell she had more to say.

“When I was sixteen, one of the guys, an older Wolverine named Mick, got drunk and started gloating about what he’d do to me if I weren’t ‘the boss’s girl.

’ Said it with a laugh, the despicable, ugly bastard.

But then he tried to follow me into the wine cellar of our old house—a big-ass house built from dirty money that doubled as headquarters sometimes. ”

Caroline swallowed hard, locking her jaw. It wasn’t out of fear, but fury. None of the guys spoke; they just watched her and listened.

“I told my father about the attempt. I expected him to tear Mick apart for trying to hurt his precious princess. You know what he did?”

She paused.

“He laughed. He claims Mick and his men were guys being guys, and ‘at least he didn’t get away with it.’ He told me if I didn’t want attention, I shouldn’t dress like bait—even though he bought most of my wardrobe.

“I wore a hoodie and jeans. I was sixteen. He barely gave me the time of day. Just waved me off like I was a fucking nuisance interrupting his murder-plotting schemes.”

I leaned down to kiss her temple lingeringly, but she had one last thing to say.

“I still gave him unconditional love, but that was the day I stopped being his daughter and instead became his puppet. I just didn’t know it yet.”

Caroline turned to me, taking both my hands in hers.

Her eyes were so beautiful, looking up into mine.

Her mouth was like a bow, sweet and blood-stained.

“Thank you for being my second chance. I’ve never had that before—never thought I needed it, then never thought I would get it.

I’m not used to mercy. You gave me that capability—to feel .

To care about someone other than myself. ”

I wanted to crack a joke about her sudden ability to say thank you , but I knew it wasn’t the right time. Nor was it the time for goodbye-sounding confessions.

I tried to talk her out of it. “You said it yourself, baby, that he doesn’t give a shit about you. You betrayed him multiple times now. Why would he do anything you ask?”

Caroline straightened, looking suddenly coy and quite proud of herself. “Because I am an actress.”

Jackson cleared his throat loudly before I could make a comment. “That isn’t a plan, lady. That’s?—”

“Fine. What do you propose instead?”

Suddenly, it was a standoff between a president and a disgraced president’s daughter. Both were formidable to a fault—and really fucking stubborn.

All the guys, including me, looked back and forth between them like an intense tennis match.

“How about,” Mason said, intervening, “we work it out civilly. This is her territory. We can use it to our advantage. She killed that bastard with one shot while seven of us couldn’t.”

And then the attention went to her and Mason. I was utterly floored.

For a second, no one spoke. Caroline stood even straighter, bolstered by what we all thought we would never hear in a million years: a compliment from Mason Ledger.

“Wow, man,” I said. “Who knew blood loss could make an honest man of you?”

Mason snorted, then flinched in pain. Brody gave him the evil eye. “Honesty is subjective. I’m just saying this next phase is too important just to throw out ideas.”

Caroline nodded. “Yes. No more unprepared fistfights. No gunfights out in the open. No more letting the enemy get away.”

She turned first to me, then to Jackson, where there was suddenly a heavy weight between them. This whole MC war began with William Black and Walter Bates.

It was going to end with Jackson Black and Walter Bates.

“This war ends here and now,” Caroline said.

She held his burning gaze until he gave the smallest of small nods, then met each of the Devils.

“We’re all on our last leg. We all have people who depend on us to stay alive.

You have babies on the way. They need their fathers. I don’t need mine to take that away.”

Abel’s throat bobbed. I knew he was thinking about Elle and their baby, just a few months away from being born. I looked at Jackson. He suddenly had something in his hand—a small piece of paper, his head bent to stare at it.

“What’s that?” I asked.

Jackson’s jaw worked as if debating whether to show it or not, then huffed and straightened, flipping the paper over for his MC to see.

It was a wallet-sized photo of Jackson holding Sam’s belly. It was clearly a candid shot. The Devil’s Luck’s big, bad president wouldn’t be caught dead in public doing something so tender, looking so vulnerable.

Silence settled among us. Damn, that was a weird reality check. Killing Bates was more important than being Reno’s vigilantes. This was about ensuring two babies were born into a life where their parents weren’t living day to day, wondering if a psychopath was going to burn down their home.

Caroline laced her fingers tightly in mine but spoke to my found family. “Walter will be dead within the hour. I swear it. Your babies, your homes, your fucking bikes—they’ll be untouchable. I swear on the blood I’ve already spilled.”

Goddamn, I didn’t know vengeance speeches could give me a hard-on, but here we are.

I looped my arm around Caroline’s waist and pulled her close to me, grinning at my brothers. “You heard her. Let’s spill some more.”